Ethan Holtzinger is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Williams Field High School for AZPreps365.com

The Williams Field Black Hawks faced off against the ALA–Queen Creek Patriots on Friday night in a 6A East Valley Region home  game.

ALA-QC came into this matchup as the favorite to win it, and for good reason, as the final score ended up being 22-10 in the Patriots' favor.

The Patriots (8-1) had a few tricks up their sleeve on offense, and they weren’t afraid to show them off on Friday night.

Halfway through the first quarter, Patriots quarterback Britt Dewitt pitched the ball to receiver Kyle Oliveri in the backfield, who then connected with receiver Kingston McCabe on a 25-yard touchdown pass to put ALA up 7-0.

The trickery wasn’t over yet though.

In the middle of the second quarter, the Patriots faced fourth and long, and they got set to punt – or at least that’s what Williams Field (4-5) thought.

As the receiving team began to question why the ball wasn’t in the air yet, Patriots punter Brody Michael was already 15-yards downfield, and he’d converted for the first down.

“You know, we haven’t done much of that in the past,” said Patriots head coach Rich Edwards. “Coach (Max) Hall did a great job of designing and implementing some of those things this week, the players did a great job executing them, and they worked flawlessly.”

The Black Hawk defense didn’t make the game too easy on ALA-QC however, with four crucial fourth down stops throughout the game.

“That’s the level that we should be playing at, and that’s what we need to figure out how to match on the offensive side of the ball,” said Black Hawks head coach Steve Campbell. “Our offense needs to create more explosive plays, and our defense just needs to keep preventing them.”

The Black Hawks have started slow offensively in most of the defeats this season, but they were able to find the end zone in the first quarter against ALA-QC.

“We just need to be more consistent, and we gotta mature a bit more on the offensive side of the ball,” said Campbell. “We’re making so many mistakes on things that we shouldn’t be, and we just gotta get right. I’m tired of these moral victories. Yeah, we’re playing most of the best teams in the state, but at some point, we need to actually go beat one of those teams.”

There’s no question that the Patriots’ defense played a huge role in their win on Friday night, just like it has all season.

Through their last nine games, the defense has allowed 82 total points against them - an average of just nine points allowed each game.

“Our starting quarterback has a knee situation going on, and unfortunately, he may be out for the rest of the year,” said Edwards. “For Britt’s first start at quarterback, he needed some guys to make plays for him, and the defensive side did more than their part in that respect.”

Adjusting to a new starter at the QB position is never easy, but ALA-QC was able to manage against Williams Field.

“We just need to execute better in the red zone,” said Edwards. “We need to get 11 guys doing the right thing at the right time and if we can do that, we’re going to be really really tough.”

Another win is always great, but Patriots receiver Kingston McCabe is focused on the end goal.

“It feels good, we’ve taken it one game at a time this year, just excited for next week and the playoffs,” said McCabe. “We’re coming for it all this year.”

Williams Field will look on to next week’s non-region matchup against rival Higley (6-3), as ALA-QC awaits a showdown against Queen Creek (8-1).